What Can Mixx Learn From the Digg Revolt?

January 24, 2008

And the drama over at the Digg community continues… It seems a good majority of “Top Diggers” are very upset with Digg’s latest algorithm which now requires a Digg vote of around 200 for a story to make the front page. This comes as a slap in the face for veteran Diggers who have worked so hard in making Digg a powerhouse social media site. And it’s not just the algorithm change that upset the power diggers, here’s a list of some of the complaints:

1) Lack of communication and disregard for the Digg community

2) Unexplained and unacknowledged banning of top users

3) Lack of transparency — Digg only shows you the stories that people have dugg, but not the ones that are buried.

4) The auto-bury list – For months, dozens of sites have been on an auto-bury list, often with no explanation whatsoever.

5) Repeated and flagrant disrespect of its top users

I’ve chatted with many Digg users before and there was always a mention of Digg going down the drain if they continue to ban users and sites with no explanation. I guess this latest update is the straw that broke the camel’s back. Here’s an interesting post by one of the Top Diggers “Bukowsky” on what went down:

So it looks like there’s a community of submitters who are willing to leave this community to join another. I’ve heard talks of submitting primarily to Propeller, Reddit, or Mixx. In my opinion, the obvious choice would be Mixx.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, Mixx is way better than Digg and it has the potential to overthrow Digg off the top. I firmly believe this situation presents a good oppurtunity for Mixx to prove how note-worthy they are.

On this note, here’s a list of things/ideas Mixx should consider if they don’t want to turn their users against them.

1 – Continue to interact with the community.

2 – Do not ignore emails and or suggestions from your members.

3 – Ask for feedback before you roll out any major updates.

4 – Don’t ban a user and give no explanation as to why they were banned.

5 – Don’t implement the “Shout” feature.

6 – Reward the “Top Mixxers” for submitting great contents.

7 – Encourage new Mixxers to participate and submit more stories.

8 – Just be honest and straight up with your members, don’t be like Kevin Rose, nobody likes a liar.

This so-called Digg revolt is the hottest news on the internet right now, maybe even surpassing Heath Ledger’s untimely death (R.I.P.). Follow the links below to read more about this latest development.

11 Responses to “What Can Mixx Learn From the Digg Revolt?”

Interesting article… Well, some said that digg traffic doesn’t really convert. Some just said that getting tons of traffic from digg makes their servers go down. Anyway, I guess it’s just wrong to make the top users get banned for no reasons at all…

SilentJay74

@Mark,
There’s a big mis-conception that this revolt is solely about the top diggers, this isn’t true. I suggest listening to the latest Drill Down podcast before you pass on any judgment : http://thedrilldown.com/?p=59